Advancing TB research using digitized programmatic data

The use of real-world data from national TB care programs has great potential to answer key research questions in TB control and is now opportune due to increasing digital data collection and storage. We summarize an expert stakeholder workshop conducted on this topic in October 2019, with perspectives from academics, national TB program officers, and data managers. We discuss challenges and opportunities in the use of TB programmatic data for research and describe digital data availability in two large, high TB burden countries, Brazil and South Africa. From this, we posit that with a standardized data collection set, improved data management, and greater collaboration, more TB programmatic data can be used for research with measurable public health impact.

Automated summary

The article summarizes discussions from an expert workshop on using real-world data from national TB care programs for research, including challenges, opportunities, and digital data availability in Brazil and South Africa. It posits that with standardized data collection, improved data management, and increased collaboration, more TB programmatic data can be utilized for research with measurable public health impact.